Cobourg's First Art Walk

Today, Saturday August 26, the artists of Cobourg came out to show everyone their talent. Billed as a single event, it was really two events rolled into one: a competition called the Battle of the Brushes and an Art Walk – a guided walk along King Street to view the display of Art in many shop windows plus some non-competitive demonstrations of painting. This was the first time 7 of the 8 competing artists had competed – they had from 10:00am till 3:00pm to paint something that was about Cobourg and it was amazing what they could do in that time. Warren McCarthy started the whole thing last December by convincing landlords with empty stores to display local art – and today, many occupied stores were also showing art by local artists.

Today’s event was organized by Warren, Councillor Suzanne Séguin and the DBIA (Chair Adam Bureau and Coordinator Paige Montgomery). The Battle of the Brushes was in front of the Town Hall – you could watch the eight artists do their thing (see photos below). They were competing for a grand prize of $500 courtesy of Lighthouse Press (Suzanne Séguin and Gerry Brown) and a second prize of a free framing donated by the Painted Tree. Together with the artist in third place, the winners also received a membership in the Art Gallery of Northumberland (AGN).

The Art Walk provided a map and gave directions to shop windows along King from the Milestones Boutique to Meet at 66 King with some side trips to Third, Albert, Covert and Division streets. Along the way, there was art in a total of 42 shop windows. There were also live displays in front of three of these “art windows” by:

Art Gallery of Colborne

Pine Ridge Art Association

Art de Triomphe

The AGN also participated – they were encouraging visits by families to their “Play, Create, Learn Program” where families could “work on an activity together”.

There was also entertainment by a Classical trio (The Elegance Trio) – all in all a great new event for Cobourg.

Paige Montgomery took advantage of her connections and arranged perfect weather (well, she has been lucky with the weather) but the number of people who showed up was limited – hopefully the 2018 event will do better.

The winner of the Battle of the Brushes was Pamela Tate - her painting was based on the photo of a story from Cobourg's past - the day a plane landed in Cobourg. Go to the Cobourg History site here for the original photo and the story.